L’exquise L’angoisse

Palpitating arteries eviscerate, a familiar taste that tastes like nothing

Frustrated art under his eyelids fading, clever words I’m never caught saying

Lost impressions leave deceptions, a tempestuous flood caught in the fray

Wish my headspace wasn’t suffocating the sun day after another day

.

Imagination stuttering, slowly dying, what are you trying to hide?

If hell’s your new phenomenon, I’m afraid it’s far too late to be described

Every broken bone that the restless audience throws back to your act

Refusing to feel right again, this time I know that I don’t know where to start

.

Don’t look at me. Don’t look at my deathwish. Nor my blinded existence.

I do not wish to breathe the same way you do. Do not bleed out of my presence.

My words are glass blades lodged under my bruised throat, so do not dare me to cough

The eclipse feels impossibly heavier without your weight to hold me down

And so I quietly submerge with only the sound of my empty thoughts.

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Swallowing Diamonds: Does It Hurt?

Don’t even know if you left a note
Should we blame the Dekapote? Or vilify the Abilify?
You were trying to find your vanilla sky
Then you unravel, facedown on rock bottom
Fucking chewing gravel, because
A human’s so fragile, what can you do?

~*~

Got another issue

Pressing like a migraine

And all the healthy “bless you’s”

Can’t repair, can’t compare

To the amount of extraordinary pain

That’s felt with every angry stare

.

So I take a pistol that’s pink on one end

And swallow it whole ‘cause my life depends

On the gunpowder chemicals

Checking up on my broken physicals

Recycling my blood through and through

10 out of 10 doctors recommend that it’s true

.

They all thought I was blissful

‘Cause they never wanna hear about

The things that are fucking awful

Trained by clinical trials, trained by pharmaceuticals

So I’m still saying “I don’t need your help!”

As I choke on my fucking gavel

.

I’ve got a teaspoon of anxiety for my head

And a glass of borderline thoughts before I go to bed

As my body fights every request and rejects my skin

The strangers may praise me, but I will never win

Even if I had all the money in the world to sell out what I love

Would that change the happiness I lack in my blood?

.

‘Cause everyone’s a critic

And a cynic and they all “get it”

When they’re living in glowing cities

With their missus, acting clever

With their 9-5 IQ’s and 401k GPA endeavours

Feeling guilty their children didn’t get their Nerf Guns

.

But monsters don’t discriminate, it’s all fair game

No blame on no names, every label is the same

You could be sitting in gold and still don’t want to get old

You could be in a prison cell and don’t do what you’re told

Or you could be like me, contemplating a straitjacket tee

On my way out to an existence that doesn’t cope out too badly

.

So maybe there are issues that cannot be fixed with tissues

Or underhanded “you’re fine’s” or endless rounds of “bless you’s”

But it doesn’t hurt to compare and it doesn’t hurt to repair

The amount of extraordinary pain that no fake adrenaline stain

Nor serotonin on our hair, taken with a beggar’s angry stares

I’m only human like you and them after all, would it hurt me to care?

~*~

They press our teardrops into diamonds
They change our sorrows into gold
They’re gonna turn our blood to rubies
We just need someone we can hold…

Domestic Park

Desk drawers

Fractured tibia

Stopwatch red

Dream febricula

Medicated blues

Hangover sober

Ready-set overdose

Insides uncovered

Busted-up mouth

Bloodied ceiling

Cracked linoleum

Window unhinging

Screaming children

Playground purple

Tempest tantrums

Drainage overfull

Halted arguments

Gossipy neigbours

“Do-not-cross” tape

Handcuffed endeavour

Guilt-ridden laughter

Covered up with tears

Madness manifesting

“I didn’t do it, dear.”

Gemstones and Constellations

You tried to kiss me through the window
I tried to settle for the taste of touching glass
Over the sound of answering machines
Because I love the way your voice
It says it’s gonna get back to me someday…

~*~

Remember the morning that wept cold stars like winter rain

Diamonds unraveling as they danced against the faded windows

As the pale pink light beneath the horizon left taciturn stains

On the browns and greys of onlooker eyes, barely open with sorrow

Painting a polychrome noir by the griefstricken brush of a god

Seeking those wandering souls that have strayed too far to go back

Piercing glass concealed fallen ashes that traced the broken blood

Like bitter scepticism left locked under closet doors so it won’t distract

Remember the morning that drained nights of their dissonant reverie

As for saving the stars that fell that evening…only a fated few were so lucky.

~*~

And this is gonna be the best day of my life
A celebration of an ending, come on…

a fathomless void

a weight that can only be felt

by breathing in the wrong kind of ozone

in a desolate universe, unraveling into

rust and dirt and long-ago bleached bones

a single pair of footsteps walk

the path, beaten down by phantoms

and mysteries hanging on an unused crucifix

the rearview mirror beckons minds on

but….onto where? onto the myriad lies that

stumble and fall back into rubbles

bruising careless feet and leaving contrived

wishes of contrition and softer mumbles

and alone—alone the blackened eyes atone,

alone the bastard hair sheds like broken roses,

alone the body dances until imminent decomposition,

alone. the man seeks, but finds no symphony amid the empty chorus.

Andromeda

Can anyone reveal the bloodstains

Hiding underneath my torn lips…

Would anyone kiss it all away?

.

My thoughts are arrested at gunpoint

As if they were guilty of something—

.

But the crimes hanging my crown

Heavy on one side are nothing new

I’ve already paid for them time and time again

But why am I still being punished?

.

I can’t escape the incarceration from

What everyone else calls their brain

Try as I may to scrape off the slivers of light,

A jailbreak only makes for broken bones

And a rather crueler atonement…

.

I’m crossing thin lines inside my head

And all over my skin, precarious and fatal

Until humility becomes my illness

.

And manipulation my only chapel of truth

.

For I am no longer human; rather

I am simply a galaxy of constellated scars

.

But not a single one coruscates any longer

And my flesh becomes just another dead star

Extinguished quietly in the infinite darkness.

Don’t Turn The Tables Sweetheart, You’re Gonna Dizzy Yourself Sick

Well, she’s not bleeding on the ballroom floor
Just for the attention, ‘cause that’s just ridiculously odd
Well, she sure is going to get it, here’s the setting
Fashion magazines line the walls now, the walls line the bullet holes
Have some composure and where is your posture? Oh, no, no!
You’re pulling the trigger, pulling the trigger all wrong…

~*~

You act like you’ve got a pretty laugh stuck in your ragged throat

Proud of the way you dirty your skin, proud of the way you gloat

About the veins, they’re just veins, they’re just another empty sea

I don’t want to swim, I don’t want to sink, I don’t want to censor me

.

Can you see the way I twist my hair into a noose that I’ll never hang?

Well the knots have hurt my fingers and for a moment my hands stung

All this beauty left to be romantic about, but sometimes nature is a bore

The bayside’s wayside in screaming trees, sometimes nature is a whore

.

When we did it, it was funny, it was temporary, it was just a tragedy

Coming from the cheap seats and you clapped for the longest irony

Now it’s your turn, it’s not funny, it’s forever, it’s a bruised symphony

We paid the balcony scene just to watch a charcoal sob for a penny

.

And your lips spill with attention and gush that you don’t want any

Paint the crooked crucifix on your pallid cheeks with bitter and honey

Now all the hypocrites adore you, blood-type A of sycophantic rude

Play a victim with a rifle to their shoulders, act as if it’s how you should

.

Now the trigger smiles so happy, does that bullet taste like sweet candy?

Do the fucking polaroids show off the best sides of your broken inhumanity?

Make us sorry that this reality didn’t fit your peach-twill dress and sanity

Was it your idea to put the slit in your throat so you can pretend that it’s originality?

~*~

Give me envy, give me malice, give me your attention!
Give me envy, give me malice, baby, give me a break!
When I say shotgun, you say wedding: shotgun, wedding, shotgun, wedding!
She didn’t choose this role, but she’ll play it and make it sincere
So you cry, you cry (give me a break) but they believe it from the tears
And the teeth right down to the blood at her feet…

Pretty Little Thing

Right before you fly you fix the broken wings of
Everything that carries you forward now
Patching up the holes remaining in your word now
I start to question what is real or not, pick apart my every thought
Dig in to a dark place, bury the thought of your face…

~*~

A wish to avoid a blatant lie

To a spine with broken bones

Waiting for retaliation in the

Shape of a forsaken home

.

As mirrors began to whisper

About the drama that unfolded

It all tasted like high tension

Keeping her weak wings faded

.

Fingers forward, burying blame

Twitching petals, her lavish name

Draped in linen, maiden serenity

Masquerading a sorrowful calamity

.

Of an oil painting melting away

In the warmth of this winter fire

Lost palettes ebbing and arching

An abandoned masterpiece dire

.

Grim faces arrested in quiet disgust

As snow fell and tainted mordant black

Onto the pallbearers dressed in drab

Carrying away an eternal chill in her heart.

~*~
Pretty little thing, you know the way to make me weak
But I’ll stand on my own feet
Shame on you for hitting where it most hurts
Shame on me for listening
Pretty little thing, I think you better turn away
My attention is ending…

Her Hypodermic Heart

I’m fading away off some kind of drug
Maybe it’s lust, maybe it’s love
I know I said I’d straighten out a week ago
I’m feeling though, about to reach my peak, you know
The city’s got me falling off
I’m fading away, I’m losing my head…

~*~

She’s the girl of my dreams

But her nightmares come cheap

She’s got Xans for a goodnight kiss

And fictional love for my lifeline

Then I was told to stay the fuck away

But baby, my head lies all the time

.

If you’re in a rush, then stop running

You’re going too fast, the stopwatch tickin’

Mending my bones, but I’m still broken

Sayin’ I adore you when the ocean gets you

Blue and cold all the way to your mouth

Need another shot to keep it right, she knew

.

But the train stations stopped working

And I’m the only passenger left in red lights

Passing by the metro, keep that devil mania

It’s getting messy, and she’s gonna get me

Delete me from her fingers like I wasn’t there yet

Confuse my addictions as if I need more, yeah

.

Hit me twice and hit me hard, let me feel that smoke

Break me down and break me fast, let me feel my heart choke

Crash my central nervous system and keep the anxiety real

I’ve got some time to fuck around, so won’t you let me feel?

‘Cause she’s always been a sweet voice at the back of my mind

But only whenever I close my eyes and let the pills rewind.

~*~

‘Cause you’ve been steady
Crawling on your knees again
You need a friend
And I’ve been on the pills again
Baby’s only twenty-three
Dancing under lights since she was seventeen
Her brain’s flooded with ketamine…

Simple Explanation

Driven by passion, outward away from family and friends
But what they can’t see is that everyday I’m drowning in a sea
Of faces that I miss so desperately with each flashing countenance—
And the weight of their absence has brought me more than once to tears
I wake from sleep violently only to witness those lives and faces
Disappear slowly behind me…

~*~

I.) Mismatched Cultures And Dead Parents

He’s got a bullet where his brain should be

And broken toys where a heart should beat

The stripes on his sweater had begun to fade

The nostalgic photographs lied except for one

So he’s turned to smoke to keep himself awake

And he’s turned to secrets to keep himself alive

But it wasn’t enough to save him from phantoms

Now he’s carried on the wrong side of the casket

No one saw it coming; no one can figure him out

Whispers of self-sacrifice, but quiet murder hung

Of the boy who played with fire but didn’t put it out

It was a mystery—it didn’t make sense to anyone but him.

~*~

II.) False Cancer And A Secret Trip To Rio

A dying man seconds away from his final breath

And his wife by the bedside that couldn’t take any

Collapsed on the floor, the debilitated cried for help

Of what seemed to be a miracle, a feigned recovery

They would die for the other, just another ancient lie

There’s no love without guilt and no guilt without love

The operating table was prepped for a wrongful death

To save the irreparable, it’s too late for her, but not him

The grief was mistaken and the medicine was not taking

All because of a surreptitious slip to a beach without sun

He lived to tell the tale of how she flatlined before his eyes

Under premises of a truth confessed too late, and what it had done.

~*~

We savored the taste of our sweet youth
And now, with calloused hands, gather the remaining fruit
To go any farther, we must endure further pains
Skinned, mashed, and finally strained
Fermenting in the time spent away
Only to return with a fine vintage
To cheers to the health of those who stayed.